A top Central Bank official has accused the OECD of trying to “hobble” the competitiveness of The Bahamas’ economic permanent residency regime by including it in an arbitrary “quasi-blacklist”. Charles Littrell, the regulator’s inspector of banks and trust companies, in a speech to a Turks & Caicos financial services conference,...

The ministry of finance last night said The Bahamas had met the September 30 deadline to begin automatic tax information exchange (AEOI) with some 35 partner jurisdictions. Revealing that the first such exchange with another country had already occurred, the ministry said this further demonstrated The Bahamas’ commitment to meet...

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a package of laws allowing Russia-controlled foreign offshore companies to be re-registered in offshore financial centers (OFCs) established in Russia’s Kaliningrad Region and Primorsky Territory in order to minimize the possible consequences of sanctions and political risks from foreign countries. The legislation establishes the procedure...

The Russian parliament’s upper chamber approved a package of laws enabling Russia-controlled foreign offshore companies to be re-registered in offshore financial centers (OFCs) established in Russia’s Kaliningrad Region and Primorsky Territory in order to minimize the possible consequences of sanctions and political risks from foreign countries. The legislation establishes the...

Offshore finance centres are not the hotbeds of tax evasion everyone seems to believe, according to a new study. Debunking myths about tax havens, think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs argues tax havens have a key economic function helping the wealthy and businesses with tax planning. And although this...

SENATOR Dion Foulkes yesterday forecast the country would soon face more pressures from the European Union and should be ready to act quickly to avoid further reputational damage. On Friday, Finance Minister K Peter Turnquest announced the Bahamas had been removed from the European Union’s “blacklist” of non-cooperative jurisdictions for...

Britain’s 14 overseas territories, including the Cayman Islands, will have to introduce public registers of beneficial ownership by the end of 2020. If they do not, the U.K. government will issue an order in council to force Cayman and other territories to do so. The U.K. Conservative Party government did...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Russian authorities are discussing the creation of two offshore financial centers (OFCs) with special legal systems in the Kaliningrad Region and the Primorsky Territory to support business circles targeted by US sanctions, the Vedomosti newspaper reported on Tuesday. According to the Vedomosti newspaper, the tax havens...

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (CMC) — The Cayman Islands, noting that it has had to get used to “unfair and inaccurate” reporting about its global financial sector, is distancing itself from the so-called Paradise Papers, a set of confidential documents related to offshore investment. In addition, the island has also...

If you live in Nigeria and you have a foreign bank account; you should read this.If things go as planned, the FIRS will soon have access to information on the money and other financial investments that you have in your foreign bank account. This will happen when the Common Reporting...

Britain is the world’s second largest conduit for multinational companies avoiding tax on profits, according to new research. Although the British government has taken a leading stand in the fight to tackle corporate tax avoidance, data analysis by researchers at Amsterdam University in The Netherlands shows The City of London...

“Disproportionate” value disappears from economic system compared to GDP Malta ranks first among a number of EU countries in a list of what a new study calls 24 “sink offshore financial centres”, which it says are typically characterised as tax havens. The study, published this week in the academic journal...

Malaysian individuals and entities that have bank accounts overseas will soon see their financial information being shared with other countries and tax authorities in an effort to boost global transparency and tax compliance. This requirement is part of the automatic exchange of financial account information set out by the Organisation...

JERSEY could be left vulnerable to being blacklisted as a ‘tax haven’ by the EU as the UK’s influence in Brussels fades during the Brexit process, a top adviser to the States has warned. Speaking at an Institute of Law seminar on the implications of Brexit for Jersey, Colin Powell...

Two reports on company taxation show that more than a third of the largest companies operating in Australia paid no tax in 2014–15 and that multinational tax evasion cost an estimated $4.8 billion that year. These reports show the fraud of the claims being made by the Australian government and...

After recent scandals, many financial and wealth management centres are losing their allure and ‘mid-shore’ options are taking their place, argues Philip Marcovici. Will all existing financial and wealth management centres survive? Are tax-free secrecy havens (the “offshore world”) a feature of the past? Is there room for entry of...

With the exception of British Antarctica, the U.K.’s overseas territories and offshore dependencies are all surrounded by sun-winking ocean water. But that’s not their only common feature—they are all under increasing political pressure to become more transparent with their financial information. In a parliamentary report on tackling overseas corruption, the...

The issue of tax havens is inherently international in scope. As a result, the government can use tax agreements to fight tax avoidance schemes. Unfortunately, tax agreements haven’t been used for that purpose. On the contrary, they have facilitated the outflow of Canadian money to offshore financial centres, and have...

Unctad thinktank shows firms funnelled $221bn in 2015 through low-tax jurisdictions such as the Netherlands and tax havens in the Caribbean The UN has urged governments to stem the flow of funds to tax havens after companies funnelled $221bn (£152bn) into countries with low tax rates last year. The Netherlands...

Over the last two decades, an increasing number of companies have chosen to register or establish subsidiaries in offshore financial centres. OFCs are characterized by low taxation, flexible regulations, and secrecy policies (see Fig 1 for the list of OFCs, ranked by Offshore Attitude Index). Many companies with subsidiaries offshore...

India’s biggest source of FDI is India itself, money departing on a short holiday to a tax haven and then routed back as FDI. Will the government muster up the political will to clamp down on the tax-allergic business elite? This could be a bumper year for the ever-lucrative tax...

Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) are jurisdictions, usually self-governing, which because of their low tax regimes, have specialized in providing commercial services to corporations and individuals, whether or not they are normally resident in that jurisdiction. The better-known offshore financial centres are small and sparsely populated countries or islands, and are...